Over the past 10 years the digital revolution has changed everybody’s life. Not since the development of television have so many consumers been effected by a media channel. Never has a combined sales and media channel been so influential in changing purchasing behaviour.

The Internet revolution has been driven by consumers who have pulled companies online by showing their willingness to spend time and money. Retailers, travel operators and financial services companies who can deliver sales of their goods and services directly through this channel have piled in. The commercial internet revolution has been based on performance based media so that these companies could enter the market with minimal risk by using aggregators, search engines and affiliate marketing to reach these consumers and pay purely on results.

The only inhibiting factor in diversifying consumer engagement has been a relative dearth of large scale media opportunities. A combination of an evolution in technology, scale of market penetration and just some “great ideas” has enabled a third wave of media owners to provide compelling and sustainable opportunities for marketing organisations to engage and evolve with their audience.

10 years into the digital revolution FMCG companies are finally being given options by online media owners for them to enter into this market of controlled risk and significant reward. The development of the Internet as a communication channel has been even greater than that of the Internet as a sales channel, but commercialisation has been lagging sadly behind. However the current economic downturn together with technology developments such as broadband have now combined to enable clients to cost effectively deliver inspirational and engaging advertising through low entry cost technology solutions.

The companies that will emerge from this recession strongest will be those that learn how to use these new digital opportunities quickest and be in a position to apply this learning as the market recovers.